From: Jasper
Date: 9/27/03
Time: 10:40:09 AM
Remote Name: 68.73.197.78
Charlie,
You would be amazed at the quality of spy equipment you could buy at Radio Shack in 1994. In fact, all telephones that don’t use a cord are essentially radios and the calls are “broadcasts” that could have been picked up with police scanners if you knew how to tune into the right “channel.” Anyone could have purchased a top-of-the-line police scanner from Radio Shack in 1994. A friend of mine at Ford used his for entertainment.
Remember the trouble that Newt Gingrige got into when a couple accidentally picked up his phone conversation on their police scanner? I don’t think you can do that today, but in 1994 it was easy. Zeroing in on a specific frequency was a simple matter of cruising the neighborhood and turning the dial until you got the “broadcast channel” you wanted. You could then “tune in” to listen from anywhere within rage of the signal.
The Spy Shop http://www.spyshop.co.uk/ http://www.countermeasures.net/spyshop.htm has been in business since 1990. Anyone operating a security company (like Ron Shipp or Tony Pellicano) could have gotten any kind of eavesdropping equipment they wanted from there. Other resources for spy equipment were also readily available to security companies and private investigators before the Bundy murders.
When I got my discharge from the Army in 1972 I worked as a rent-a-cop for short time. The company I worked for (Town and Country) specialized in hiring Vietnam vets, selling them uniforms and equipment and then cooking up an excuse to fire them without paying them. On a table in their lobby they had a large array of books, pendants, uniform accessories AND surveillance equipment that they sold to their employees. If a disreputable company like that could obtain high quality spy equipment, anyone could.
In the 1974 movie The Conversation, you see Gene Hackman’s character attending a spy gadget fair (in Chicago, I think) where surveillance experts could get everything they needed to monitor anyone’s conversations anywhere. Such fairs with such equipment were, in fact, operating throughout the United States as far back as 1974. However, getting the equipment and knowing how to use it effectively required experts in surveillance techniques – experts like Mark Fuhrman, Brad Roberts, Ron Shipp and Tony Pellicano. --Jasper